By Jigar Shah
History Created
We saw amazing pictures, a few weeks ago, of our men in blue winning an enthralling match against Syria. A treat to watch happy and smiling faces of Indian Football players including, coach Bob Houghton. Indian football owes a lot to Mr. Bhutia, India’s first footballer to complete 100th game and rightly the coach showering accolades for our captain by saying “India lucky to have a Bhutia”.
You cannot single out his performance, but players like Mahesh Gawli, Subrata Paul, Renedy Singh, Climax Lawrence and many other performed well and deserved to get much needed media attention. I was happy to see significant space given by electronic media to ONGC Nehru Cup winners 2009. After many years, we have seen Indian Football team making headlines on the front pages of every newspaper and sports magazines. An incredible match played in front of 20,000 Indian football fans in Ambedkar Stadium and watching your national team winning on dramatic penalty shootout was icing on the cake.
The Present
India’s victory over Syrians in the Finals of ONGC Nehru Cup 2009 has helped India to achieve new heights in Indian Football and from here on I hope things should get better. First, the improvement in the ranking is a positive sign, although our highest FIFA ranking was 94 in the year 1996. The current team might have won accolades but in realty All India Football Federation (AIFF) need to bring a lot of developments in coming years.
“Here, a look at some facts and recent statements:
Few days back, AFC president Manilal Fernando mentioned that he is not happy with the way I-League is governed and if the sate of affairs is not changed then I-League may have to face strict action.
Mr. Baichung Bhutia, who has 14 years long career, reiterated that AIFF needs to get tough with I-league clubs in order to make them to adhere to the norms of Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for making the game truly professional in India.
One of the startling facts, which is hard to digest, in a recent study by football writer Simon Kuper and leading sports economist Stefan Szymanski says India is possibly a worst football team.”
Some of the above facts are hard to digest and as an ardent football fan I believe that time has arrived where we can build a new era; a new beginning to build a robust tomorrow for Indian Football. The victory over Syrians might prove to be a landmark, which Indian Football needed, and I hope from here on we achieve more glories.
Way to Improve…
Good Governance – We Need Few Good Men
Please all the bureaucrats should quit the prestigious job of administering football at the state and club level. Indian football doesn’t need autocratic and stubborn behavior of state officials; instead we need few good men (ex-football players) who can professionally conduct our football with integrity and diligence.
Better Stadiums – We Need Infrastructure
Broken seats, smelly toilets, lack of facilities and more important terrible surface to play on - it’s absolutely frustrating (except Salt Lake Stadium). I wish I had an Aladdin wonderful Lamp so that I can rub and ask djinni to change the pathetic state of stadiums in India. Look at the condition of Cooperage ground; it is not at all pleasing?
Create Stars - Time to Give Credit
Unfortunately, Football has not created demigods like Cricket in India, and we need to build some stars who can give us better tomorrow. I think time has come where we should give some credit, and I am glad the kind of coverage our boys been getting since Nehru Cup triumph. Please we need more Baichung Bhutia for taking our football to the next level.
Marketing – Reach Out
It’s a cliché that Indian Football is not marketed well, but in realty quality sells like hot cakes. We need to create all round quality to sell our product. In India, there is a significant surge in the popularity of EPL in the last two years, due to the exposure of European Football on sports channels and most followers would love to watch EPL over the weekend than local games on DD sports and that is purely due to quality and marketing. So the fact remains that we need to build quality in order to market our football to the next level. I think adding glamour like our Brand Ambassador Salman Khan might be a good marketing gimmick by AIFF.
Banking on Youth – We Need Academies
In every football country, there are football academies and it’s the responsibility of clubs to look after and nurture young talents. If we need to build better future than we have to start promoting football seriously at school levels, with proper facilities, so that clubs from various parts of the country provide national players, not restricting it to one or two regional clubs.
There have been recent developments, for instance, AIFF acting President Praful Patel is trying his level best to pump in more money into the game, a recent grant given by BCCI of INR 250 million, a recent government backing of ‘2011Goal Project’ around 40 crore and by adding some glamour i.e making Salman Khan as football brand ambassador, are all positive signs, but I hope a lot more ground level efforts are undertaken (as mentioned above) by AIFF in order to see India perform well in the 2011 Asian Cup in Doha.
As a true Football fan I would love to have answers to these questions, Can Indian Football match European Standards? Will India Ever Qualify for World Cup? I am not aware how long it might take, but I can certainly wish that India competes at the top level during my lifetime.
What do you think is the most important thing that Indian Football needs - Good Governance, Better Stadiums, Stars, Youth or Marketing? Share your views
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